AND THE THIRD ANGEL FOLLOWED THEM, SAYING WITH A LOUD VOICE, IF ANY MAN WORSHIP THE BEAST AND HIS IMAGE, AND RECEIVE HIS MARK IN HIS FOREHEAD, OR IN HIS HAND.
*** REVELATION 14:9

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Protestant South Becoming a New Catholic Stronghold

Posted by STEPHEN BEALE on Saturday May 11th, 2013 at 8:32 AM

Dixie Catholics credit the strong Southern sense of community, and dialogue with faithful Protestants, with helping to power the Church’s growth there.

LINDEN, Va. — In the waves of turbulence that rippled throughout the Catholic Church in the 1970s, the nuns of St. Dominic’s Monastery found themselves forced to leave their longtime home in Wisconsin in search of a new one.

The nuns moved to a temporary residence in Washington, D.C., while looking for a permanent setting conducive to the cloistered, contemplative life they sought to lead. It would be more than two decades before they found one. When they did, it was in what may seem a most unlikely place: the rural northeast of Virginia, considered one of the Protestant Bible Belt states of the South.

The story of St. Dominic’s Monastery’s southern move may be the story of U.S. Catholicism. New data shows that some of the fastest-growing dioceses in the country are deep in the U.S. South.

The third-fastest-developing diocese is Atlanta, which saw the number of registered parishioners explode from nearly 322,000 in 2002 to 1 million in 2012 — an increase of more than twofold, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. Atlanta also has the largest Eucharistic Congress in the country, with an annual attendance of about 30,000, according to an archdiocesan official.

Atlanta is not alone. Charleston, S.C., has seen a 50% increase in parishioners over the last decade. Charlotte, N.C., grew by a third, as did Little Rock, Ark. The Diocese of Knoxville, Tenn., established just 25 years ago, is now the 25th-fastest- growing diocese in the nation — and would rank near the top if those official figures counted as many as 60,000 unregistered Hispanic congregants, according to a diocesan official.

Dioceses like Knoxville stand in stark contrast to former Catholic strongholds like Boston and Philadelphia, where parish consolidations, school closures and dwindling priests are the norm.

“Instead of us closing parishes and closing schools, we’re doing the opposite. We’re in total growth mode,” said Deacon Sean Smith, chancellor for the Diocese of Knoxville.

When Knoxville was established as a diocese in 1988, it had 37 parishes. It has since added 14, including four mission parishes. It has also expanded three parishes, built a new high school and opened one middle-elementary school. Meanwhile, the number of parishioners has doubled.

Bountiful Vocations

One telling indicator is vocations to the priesthood. Knoxville expects to have 23 men in graduate seminary next year. Contrast the Archdiocese of Chicago, which has 37 times as many parishioners but only three times as many graduate seminarians next year, at an anticipated enrollment of 70. Boston, which is nearly 30 times the size of Knoxville, will have 60.

“There’s excitement here in Tennessee and I would say in the Southeast in general,” Smith said.

That sentiment is shared by the nuns at St. Dominic’s Monastery, who have found a thriving local Catholic community that boasts nearbyChristendom College as another institutional gem.

“We ourselves are astounded by the depth and beauty of the Catholic culture and community that surrounds us,” said one nun, permitted to speak only on the condition of anonymity because of rules governing the cloistered life of the monastery. “We never felt so loved by the surrounding community.”

The Southeast does not have a monopoly on exponential growth. Among the top 25 high-growth dioceses, nearly half are in the U.S. Southwest, stretching from Fresno, Calif., the second-highest-ranking diocese, to Laredo, Texas, the first. But there, Hispanic immigration is behind most of the growth, according to Mark Gray, a research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

In the Southeast, however, something different is happening. In a region where churches sit on seemingly every street corner and billboards belt out Bible verses and calls for repentance, local Catholics say they have found fertile ground for the renewal of the Church.

“Our Protestant brothers and sisters have done us a great favor. Talking about faith here in the South is like eating, breathing and sleeping,” said Randy Hain, a managing partner at Bell Oaks Executive Search in Atlanta and co-founder of The Integrated Catholic Life, an online magazine. “There’s an openness about faith here, which makes it easier to be open about your faith if you’re Catholic.”

Smith, who grew up in Colorado, suggested that it is easier for Northern Catholics to take their faith for granted because most of their friends belong to the Church.

“It doesn’t really challenge the Catholics there to know their faith as well or be able to explain it clearly,” added Lisa Wheeler, founder of Carmel Communications, a Catholic marketing firm in the Atlanta area.

But in the South, where they are a decided minority in a predominantly evangelical-Protestant population, Catholics must constantly defend their faith. As a result, they come to cherish it, Smith said.

Streams of Converts

Dialogue with Protestants has produced a steady stream of Catholic converts, who now constitute one of the driving forces of growth in the region, Wheeler said.

When Hain, himself a convert, was received into the Church in 2006, there were 27 members of his confirmation class. His wife’s class, in the same year, had 33. At the time, there were 1,900 registered families in his parish, St. Peter Chanel in Roswell, an Atlanta suburb. Now, there are more than 3,000, according to Hain.

Converts do more than just fill pews: They bring enthusiasm and passion for their faith with them into the Church, said Hain and Wheeler, a fellow parishioner at St. Peter Chanel. Such energy is reflected in the breadth of ministries at the parish, which number more than 60 — and that’s not counting the many independent ministries run by parishioners. The Integrated Catholic Life is one example of the broad reach of the parish: The other co-founder of the site is a deacon at St. Peter Chanel.

Besides converts, transplants are a second source of growth. In Knoxville, many out-of-state arrivals are known as "halfbacks": people who moved from the cold North to Florida, only to move halfway back, settling in eastern Tennessee, where they can enjoy four seasons, without the cold weather, Smith said. Atlanta has the added allure of being a major transportation hub for business, Wheeler said.

Hispanic immigration is still a factor in regional growth, but it is mentioned more as a secondary contributor than as the leading cause.

Strong Sense of Community

Another potential advantage working in favor of the South: a greater sense of community associated with the predominantly rural character of the region, as contrasted with the dense urbanization of many Northern states.

The difference between rural and urban dioceses can be measured in terms of vocations. “I have seen a trend over the last 10 years, where the most rural dioceses are tending to generate more seminarians per capita than the major rural metropolitan dioceses,” said Father Thomas Baima, the vice rector at Mundelein Seminary in the Chicago area. He says higher-density cities have greater mobility, meaning young people don’t put down roots and make those long-lasting connections to parish communities out of which vocations arise.

Every single state in the U.S. South has a lower population density per square mile than each state along the Boston to D.C. urban corridor, U.S. Census data shows. At the extreme ends, New Jersey has just over 1,195 residents per square mile, against 56 in Arkansas, as of the 2010 Census. In the middle, Pennsylvania has nearly 284 residents per square mile, while Virginia has just over 202.

Even a large city like Atlanta is more decentralized. Most of the metro population is in the suburbs outside the city limits, where communities coalesce around church and school, Hain said.

Lessons for the North

Catholics in the South say their experience holds lessons for their Northern counterparts. Wheeler says Southern hospitality has also rubbed off on local Catholics.

“I think that is something that is missing from many parishes in the North,” Wheeler said. She noted that some of her extended relatives in the Northeast have moved to Protestant churches due to a lack of hospitality in their local parishes.

Hain believes that if Catholics in other areas were as open about their faith as Southerners are, there would be a resurgence in the Church.

MISSION STATEMENT

To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant.

Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry.

The Catholic-Judeo U. S. Supreme Court

5 Roman Catholics, 1 Episcopal (RC Light), and 3 Jews

Provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods

...our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 5, p.451.

The Fresh Air Fund

THE FRESH AIR FUND, an independent, not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.7 million New York City children from low-income communities since 1877. (Click on image to donate)

Sunset Calendar

Click on Picture for Sunset- Sunrise Calendar for your location.

Freedom

We do not have freedom because the Constitution gives it to us; The Creator gives us our rights. The Constitution was written to keep the government from taking our rights away. We have rights granted by God and not by men; such rights as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

THE HOLY BIBLE

The King James Version is in the public domain in the United States; you may copy and quote from it without restriction. The other Bibles at the Bible Gateway: (http://www.biblegateway.com), however, are not in the public domain, unless otherwise specified.

THE GREAT CONTROVERSY

(The Great Controversy), unveils the often unseen battle between Christ and Satan, and looks ahead to the day sin’s reign will end, and Jesus will rule as King of kings and Lord of lords.

THE SECRET TERRORISTS

"A secret terrorist organization has been working within to destroy America, its Constitution, and everything for which she stands"..(Click on pic)

The Enemy Unmasked

As one looks at the history of nations, from Babylon to Rome to America, it is evident that a Divine hand was protecting and guiding America..(Click on pic)

Foxe's Book of Martyrs

This book by John Foxe (1517 - 1587) is beyond doubt one of the great Christian classics in English- Read it on line (Click on Picture)

Fifty Years in The Church of Rome

The life story of Charles Chiniquy, who was a priest in the Roman Catholic Church for 25 years.

Earth's Final Hours

Click on image to read this book.

The Two Babylons

Where did the practices and beliefs of Roman Catholicism come from? In this scholarly classic, first published over eighty years ago, Alexander Hislop reveals that many Roman Catholic teachings did not originate with Christ or the Bible, but were adopted from ancient pagan Babylonian religion, and given Christian names. (Click on image to read online).

TOO LONG IN THE SUN

The book "Too Long in the Sun", traces pagan sun worship from the time of the Chaldeans, through the civilizations of the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Grecians, the Romans and right on through present day, documenting its influence upon modern day "Christianity."

ELLEN G. WHITE

The greatest want of the world is the want of men, --men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall. -Education, p. 57. (1903)

Martin Luther

“The papacy is the seat of the true and real antichrist personally I declare that I owe the Pope no other obedience than that to Antichrist."

Abraham Lincoln

I see a very dark cloud in our horizon. And that cloud is coming from Rome.

John Adams

"If ever an association of people deserved eternal damnation, on this earth and in hell, it is this society of Loyola." (1816)

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

GENERAL MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE

It is my opinion that if the liberties of this country — the United States — are destroyed, it will be by the subtlety of the Roman Catholic Jesuit priests, for they are the most crafty, dangerous enemies to civil and religious liberty. They have instigated most of the wars in Europe.

Edmund Burke

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Luigi Desanctis

“In a country where there are Jesuits, they must either rule or the country must go to ruin… it is they who rule the world.”

GALILEO GALILEI

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Miguel de Cervantes

"Our greatest foes, and those we must chiefly combat, are within."

Frederick Douglass

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

Eugenio María de Hostos

"I wish that they will say: In that island (Puerto Rico) a man was born who loved truth, desired justice, and worked for the good of men." Hostos wrote his own epitaph.

Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.”

Arturo Alfonso (Arthur) Schomburg

"The modern school without systematic lectures turns out many graduates who lack retention. No sooner has the sound of the word left their teacher's lips, the subject has been forgotten"

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (Lord Acton)

"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it."

Pastor Martin Niemöller

First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

U.S.M.C.Major General Smedley Butler

“War is just a racket,” “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.” (Click on photo to read his book)

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

EDWARD R. MURROW

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

John F. Kennedy

“The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. ”

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but morally treasonable to the American public."

W.E.B. DUBOIS

"Drunk with power, we (the U.S.) are leading the world to hell in a new colonialism with the same old human slavery, which once ruined us, to a third world war, which will ruin the world."

JOHN V. LINDSAY

There are men – now in power in this country – who do not respect dissent, who cannot cope with turmoil, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support repression as long as it is done with a quiet voice and a business suit.

HENRY FORD

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

MARCUS M. GARVEY

"We Negroes believe in the God of Ethiopia, the everlasting God -- God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the one God of all ages. That is the God in whom we believe, but we shall worship him through the spectacles of Ethiopia."

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

ALAN BARTH

"The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state."

EUGEN WEBER

"Wolves are wolves even if you choose to pretend they are chickens."

Craig Hulet

Is it progress when a cannibal uses a knife and fork?

Charles Goyette

"Just lay your freedom at out our feet, and we'll take care of everything for you."

GEORGE SANTAYANA

"He Who Does Not Remember History Is Condemned To Repeat It"

GEORGE ORWELL

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

ALDOUS HUXLEY

"...Ecclesiasticism without Christianity, the discipline of a monastic rule, not for God's sake or in order to achieve personal salvation but for the sake of the State and for the greater glory and power of the demagogue turned leader - this was the goal for which the systematic moving of the masses was to lead" (Brave New World Revisited, Huxley, 44-45)

Richard Maybury

Washington... has become an alien city-state that rules America, and much of the rest of the world, in the way that Rome ruled the Roman Empire.

Frank Zappa

"The illusion of freedom [in America] will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."

Sinclair Lewis

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

Sabbath Commercial for Television

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfgNbEzJ7ZY&feature=player_embedded

James D. Standish, Esq.

"The United Nations can be a tool to advance the cause of religious freedom."

THE HOLY INQUISITON

"Remember The Inquisition; It won't be long before the fires are ignited all over again". Arsenio [2007]

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J.

“The fate of mankind, as well as of religion, depends upon the emergence of a new faith in the future.”

Hillary R. Clinton

"What difference, at this point, does it make?!” -- At congressional panel on the U.S. Consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.

Albert Pike

"To you, Sovereign Grand Instructors General, we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st and 30th degrees: 'the Masonic Religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the LUCIFERIAN Doctrine. If Lucifer were not god, would Adonay (Jesus)... calumniate (spread false and harmful statements about) him?...Yes Lucifer is God..."

Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J.

In fact, the four hundred and fifty years of the Society's history have been a record of fruitful association with the laity, in which the Ignatian spirit has manifested itself in the Church in many forms, and it continues to do so with vigor today.

Barack H. Obama

"Those nations that refuse to meet their obligations will be isolated, and denied the opportunity that comes with international integration" @ Prague 4/8/10

Pat Robertson

"The time has come when we must lay aside minor points of doctrinal differences and focus on the centralization of our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ."

JIMMY CARTER

"The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion," Carter said. "As a traditional Baptist, I've always believed in separation of church and state and honoured that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one."

Dr. José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado

"We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated."

Saul Alinsky

"Think globally, act locally"

Joseph Ratzinger

"The Pope enjoys, by divine institution, "supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls"

GEORGE W. BUSH

"Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."

WILLIAM J. LEVADA

"I'm past the deer-in-the-headlights phase,"

CHARLES EDWARD COUGHLIN

On this earth you must belong to the church militant or get the hell out of it. That's the right word. You're either with me or against me' There is no middle ground in this battle between Christ and the anti-Christ. If you step out of (the battle), you're worse than those boys who ran off to Norway, Sweden, those boys who deserted the government. You're deserters, rotten deserters.

ROBERT SCHULLER

"It is time for Protestants to go to the shepherd (the pope) and say, `What do we have to do to come home?'" Dr. Robert Schuller, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Sept. 19, 1987.

ADAM WEISHAUPT

Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery. The hankering of the mind is irresistible.

DAVID SPANGLER

No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation.

ZBIGNIEW BRZENZINSKI

Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen...

HENRY KISSINGER

"We will get a New World Order. We may not get it in our generation, but if we do not get it in our generation, we will get it in the next generation."